By way of background concerning some conventional systems, mobile devices, such as portable laptops, PDAs, mobile phones, navigation devices, and the like have been equipped with location-based services, such as global positioning system (GPS) systems, WiFi, cell tower triangulation, etc. that can determine and record a position of mobile devices. For instance, GPS systems use triangulation of signals received from various satellites placed in orbit around Earth to determine device position. A variety of map-based services have emerged from the inclusion of such location-based systems that help users of these devices to be found on a map and to facilitate point-to-point navigation in real-time and to search for locations near a point on a map.
However, such navigation and search scenarios are currently limited to displaying relatively static information about particular locations, wherein interacting with such locations require a user to provide an input via a touch screen and/or keypad. For many potential interactions though, considering the complexity of input on touch screens or tiny alphanumeric keypads typically provided for portable electronic devices, requiring an input via such an interface is inadequate for invoking benefits of location-based services. For instance, a user quickly driving by a location may find it cumbersome and unnecessarily time-consuming to both identify the location (e.g., by obtaining a digital profile for a restaurant, such as a Yelp profile) and provide an input pertaining to the location via a touch screen/keypad user interface (e.g., a drawing of an “unhappy face”). Accordingly, it would be desirable to develop a support system and methodology for a device having a user interface that provides users with location-based input capabilities unobtainable and/or impractical with a touch screen/keypad user interface.
The above-described deficiencies of today's location based systems and devices are merely intended to provide an overview of some of the problems of conventional systems, and are not intended to be exhaustive. Other problems with the state of the art and corresponding benefits of some of the various non-limiting embodiments may become further apparent upon review of the following detailed description.